Hello and welcome to Battleground 45 with me, Saul David.

Today I'm discussing arguably the finest British offensive victory of the Second World War,

the twin battles of Mandalay and Macteala in Burma, also known as Operation Extended Capital.

It was fought by Lieutenant General Bill Slim's multinational 14th Army,

the so-called forgotten army, against the Japanese Burma Area Army under General Hightaro Kimura.

To lead us through the action is historian Rob Lyman, author of many books, but including

Slim Master of War, Kahima 1944, and a War of Empires.

Rob, you're in India at the moment, which is very fitting. Welcome back to the podcast.

That's great to be back with

you, so fabulous. And by the way, I'm off to, I'm off to Burma this afternoon. So you've called

me just at the right time. Yeah, you're in Kolkata, Calcutta, as we knew it in the Second World War.

Let's set the scene then, shall we? Tell us, Rob, a little bit about the strategic situation in India-stroke Burma in late-94.

And what was Slim's plan for the reconquest of Burma?

Yeah, let's just start by saying 1945 and all those operations that retook Burma were completely unplanned and unexpected by anyone in the Allied camp.

Even at early 1945, they weren't even perhaps a glim in Slim's eye because the previous year, 94, were the great cataclysmic battles which saw Japanese invasion of India there,

march on Delhi, come to a dead stop at Kahima and Imphal,

and indeed in the Battle of Arakhan in February.

So 9044, this very large Japanese army under the Japanese general,

the 15th Army, Murtiguchi, Rhenya, came to a stop. And probably about

90% of his 105,000 men made it back. So that would treat from India in late 1940s, known as the

road of bones, Japanese called it the road of bones because so many people died on the way back.

Slim, the story about where this led to is a really fascinating one because it had never been Allied strategy, believe it or not, to reconquer Burma.

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